What It Takes to Close a Gate
by Tranquilled
Summary: Forced to protect a gate that opens another dimension, Kagome and Sango meet a half-demon named Inuyasha. But will their painful memories of demons keep them from cooperating with him?


Hey, y'all! This is my first fanfiction, and reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

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Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha. However, I'm pretty sure I do own the theory of gates of dimension (in the sense they're used in in this story).

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Kagome 

For fifteen years, I'd listened to my grandfather and mother tell me stories about magic and how our family, a family of Japanese priests and priestesses, had the powers of purification.

I'd always said I didn't believe them.

It wasn't as though I was lying. I had always thought myself, Kagome Higurashi, to be different from the rest of my family. After all, I was the only one in my family to be actually good at math and Japanese, and to be unable to make a proper sutra. Because of that, everyone assumed that I didn't have any magic power. But what they didn't know was that the sutras were a load of garbage. I'd tried it myself: I'd only discovered that the symbols were mystic and gave the papers magic, not the papers themselves.

I'm Kagome, and I have real magic powers.

It was the day right before winter vacation started. Or should I say, the first night of it. I was slinking as surreptitiously and inconspicuously as possible down the streets. Nobody noticed me, a cosplayer dressed in a black turtleneck, black jeans, black boots and my hair untied so as to cover my face, I crept slowly down the Tokyo alleyways at one in the morning, clutching my black bow and an arrow from the quiver on my back.

Yes, I was a freak. But I was a freak who was going to save Tokyo, like it or not.

As a reached a slightly rural part of the outskirts, I saw it. A swirling plasma-like blue portal. A portal, I knew, to a different dimension.

The portals are officially "Gates of Dimension." Anyone is free to enter them, but you have absolutely no chance of coming out on the other side alive. Traveling between dimensions, or planes, which makes much more sense, defies the laws of physics, and so if you actually tried to, you'd be atomized within milliseconds.

Unfortunately, some things can pass through the gates of dimension. There are magic spells and charms that allow you to, which is why I was there.

A ghastly roar emitted from the portal, and the fire bird rushed from the swirl. Seven feet high and consisting entirely of fire, I knew my arrows were no match for it. Setting my bow and quiver carefully down, I faced the creature head on. "Creature of the depths of hell, begone!" The holy ball of energy wrapped itself around the bird. Curses. No help.

I dodged a fireball as the creature spat at me. I was forced to resort to elemental spells, which I had recently learned. Granted, they are forbidden magic, but what's a girl to do? Clambering up from the scorched ground, I formed a triangle with my hands. I could feel the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen being sucked from the air around me. I focused as hard as humanly possible, and a huge gush of water wrapped itself around the bird. I grabbed my arrows and shot one right through the bird. "Holy Shield!" I prayed. The holy shield miraculously formed. The fire bird was trapped inside a ball of holy energy filled with water. Such irony.

As the bird's dying shrieks died down, I turned my attention towards the portal. I grabbed an arrow and pressed it across the swirl and channeled some holy energy through it. _Seal!_ I begged, and the swirl gradually began to subside. I reached down to pick up my bow and quiver…

When six streaks of light, disturbingly resembling claw scratches, appeared in the air. What was my mysterious attacker attempting to do? Break the holy shield? Not likely. That was a demon attack, and unfortunately, it was going to rebound.

"Argh!" I could hear the sound of a small amount of blood splattering the ground. But since it was most likely a demon, I didn't plan to stick around and heal him. I did what would probably assure my health and snuck a look at the rapidly dying bird, then ran for my life.

My family's house is on the grounds of the Higurashi Temple. That meant that I had to run across a gray stone courtyard to get home, and after that, there was just the little problem of the fact that my room was on the second floor.

Not to worry. My bow was enchanted to be stronger than steel, so I clambered up onto the kitchen windowsill and used the hooked tip of the bow to grab the drain thing that goes around the roof. I climbed up, hand over hand, until my feet just barely got to my own windowsill. There, I slid into the open window, retrieved my bow, and jumped into bed.

The next day, I was out and about again, wearing sunglasses to disguise my sleep-deprived eyes. On my way out, I met Sango, one of my few close friends. She was the only one I knew of who was conscious about my nighttime adventures. She was the one who'd gotten me my bow and arrows, and for that and keeping my secret, I'd be forever grateful.

"Good morning, Kagome!" she cried out at the bottom of the stairs leading to the shrines. "What do you want to do today?"

"Sleep," I grumbled. "The job was at one in the morning, and it's seven. I don't even wanna come out."

Smirking, Sango said, "Then why don't you stay home? It's not like you have a doctor's appointment or something."

"Do you really think my mom would let me wear sunglasses at home? She already thinks I'm malnourished. If she sees my eyes, I'm going to the hospital, no doubt about it."

Sango chuckled. "Well, let's go to the library first. You know that senile old librarian. I doubt she even remembers how to read anymore. Let's go find some magic books!"

I nodded. As I drunkenly made my way down the stairs, I asked, "Sango, what demon uses claws to attack?"

Sango thought for a moment. Her family, not much unlike mine, had been at constant war with demons. They were ninjas, and Sango had been trained accordingly. However, the gates of dimension had been a recent discovery, and as a result, Sango and I were pretty much the only ones guarding the one in Tokyo. While I knew a bit more about the gates than she did, Sango knew almost everything there was to know about demons.

"Well," she said tentatively, "a lot of demons use claws. Demons are usually based on the animals they resemble, unless they aren't animal based. So I think it's safe to say that it's mostly cat and dog demons, possibly wolf demons. Why do you ask?"

"Um…" I wasn't sure if she really wanted to hear. "Well, yesterday, while I was on the job, I'd just managed to get the fire phoenix into a holy shield."

"Uh-huh…" Sango looked at me expectantly.

"And while I was sealing the gate, these claw marks appeared, and they looked like they were full of energy. And they rebounded off of the shield, so they must have been demon. But I didn't want to get hurt, so I ran…" I cast my eyes down. I knew that running was an inexcusable breach of the ninja code of honor, which Sango had drilled into me from the time we'd decided to be partners in crime. But I hoped she would understand anyway.

"Well… Kagome, you didn't exactly do the right thing by running, but it was something you didn't know, so I can kind of understand why you were afraid…" Sango shook her head as we entered the center of the metropolis known as Tokyo. "But did you see it at all? Do you know if it was attacking the bird, or trying to break the shield?"

"No, I didn't see anything. I just know that once the attack rebounded, it hit the demon. And there was some blood, too."

Sango looked appalled. "And you didn't even think to take some?"

I was just about at my wits' end. "Okay, okay! We'll go and get some. Happy?"

She looked slightly appeased when I led her to the dirt track where the portal had been the night before. Gates of dimension can move around, and it's usually because there is some evil power that's nearby. This time it was just random, because I didn't sense anything, demonic or otherwise. Neither did Sango.

The road was completely deserted. The nearest house was about a kilometer or so away, and we were already about three-quarters of a kilometer from the town. All was quiet.

Sango was looking at the ground, where bloodstains covered the unpaved ground. There was a lot more than I thought- poor guy. I almost wished I'd stayed back to heal him, then remembered that I'd probably end up dead. I shuddered.

"It was definitely a dog demon," Sango pronounced. "But it seems a bit diluted. Do you think it might be a half-demon?"

I had to admit, the demonic aura of the blood wasn't nearly as strong as the aura from the blood of the many demons I'd killed. Granted, most of the demons I killed were atomized or purified into thin air, but I realized that the blood had a faint human aura.

"Yeah, right," I scoffed. "Who the hell would mate with a dog demon?"

"You never know," Sango warned.

As we started back towards Tokyo, I had a thought: "Sango, what if this person knows about the gate of dimensions? Do you think they could be an ally?"

Sango looked at me as though I had been lobotomized. "Kagome, demons are evil. Even if he is on the same side as us, he will never, _never_, be an ally."

"Isn't that kind of oxymoronic?" I joked, but I really did understand. Humans can't coexist with demons, and that's just the way it is.

Sango and I made our way down the dirt road and back into the vast urban paradise that was Tokyo. In the distance, I could see Tokyo Tower, standing against the reddening sky. Sango wanted to take me to the mall, but I'd refused, saying that my mother would maim me if I didn't get home soon.

As we approached a parking lot, I saw a tall guy, a few inches taller than me, wearing jeans and a denim jacket. He was standing stock still in the middle of the empty sidewalk, a complete roadblock to anyone who wanted to get by. Worse, he had the evil aura of a demon. And get this: it was a half-demon.

"Excuse us." I called from about a meter away. He yielded no response. "Excuse us!" I yelled from a closer distance. "Will you get the heck out of the way?!" I screamed, finally losing my temper. He whipped around, finally noticing he had an audience. "Shut up, stupid wench!" he yelled.

When I'm angry, I can get really angry. It's like the serotonin, the chemical that causes calmness, drains right out of my brain and it's all replaced by adrenaline.

And that guy, that _half-demon_, I could tell by his aura, was definitely making me angry. First he had the audacity to stand there like a mentally challenged behemoth while Sango and I begged him to move for five whole minutes, then he calls us _wenches_?

I was definitely going to blow. I didn't care about the assault charges.

As he stared at me in contempt four inches from my face, I locked eyes with him. I could see his pupils dilating, trying to scry into my true intentions. Then I stepped on his foot as hard as I possibly could.

He screamed. Considering the fact that I was wearing cleats, I could hardly blame him. My next course of action was to ram my elbow into his diaphragm. Sango pulled me away, and as she did so, I muttered, "I loathe half-demons..."

At this point, the sun was already beginning to set and I had a reasonable excuse for my half-bloodshot, shadowed eyes. I said goodbye to Sango, tramped on home, and with a feeling of distinct dread, opened the door.


End file.
